Microsoft unveils Windows Phone 7.8 on a Nokia Lumia 900

Microsoft has begun showing off its Windows Phone 7.8 update. In a video posted on the official Windows Phone Blog, Microsoft employee Ben Rudolph demonstrates Windows Phone 7.8 on a Nokia Lumia 900.

Rudolph doesn’t list many added features or improvements from Windows Phone 7.5 - just the redesigned Windows Phone 8 homescreen. In other words, aside from the ability to resize tiles, Windows Phone 7.8 appears to be the same operating system in a new package.

The update comes across as an effort to appease Windows Phone users - especially the two million people who have purchased a Nokia Lumia 900 in the three months since it launched - who may have been disappointed to hear they would not be getting Apollo on their devices.

A frustrated Lumia 900 owner recently wrote a letter to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega to vent about not being eligible for an upgrade to Windows Phone 8. Elop responded with a prompt, and rather vague, email explaining that Nokia has “a lot of exciting capabilities coming as part of a pattern of updates for the existing Lumia products. This includes some of the most significant visual elements of WP8 - for example, the new start screen.”

No word yet on what other improvements owners of Windows Phone 7.5 devices can expect to see, but Microsoft has created a new page detailing all the updates.